Birch trees in Aquarelle - a great subject!

 In the watercolour painting session of last week we had 'Birch Tress' as our main subject. It was great fun and you will see more of it next week as we did not have a session on Thursday (my bad) and not everyone has finished on Tuesday, but you will see in the pictures below that we had fantastic fun!

This watercolour by Barbara was the inspiration for choosing the subject. What a magnificent painting she created! Light, movement and a passionate use of colour. Awesome!

Charlie was not over the moon with her creation - but we were! And now I see it back I am even more enthusiastic. It has a tremendous light and such a strong foreground-background contrast. Well done Charlie!!

Anne has a new grandbaby, just born and she has missed some (a lot of - ) sleep - and she still had plenty energy to create 3 paintings! Two of them birch trees, one loose and quick and one a tribute to autumn. Very beautiful.
 

Roxane loves this subject and embarked on an ambitious project with a lot of trees... She will no doubt finish this soon, you can look forward to that in the coming posts.

My hands were itching to paint along, so I did and created the one above and then I did one to show that birches are such a strong image that they stay birches even if you simplify them. 

In the demo I made a mistake. It is in NR 1: when you look at a tree, the perspective changes above the horizon (red line) or eye height. I did that wrong in the left tree. Repaired it by lifting as much paint as I could and then paint over it. So, in NR 2 it is more logical. 

And then below that, the finished version. Funny to see that it is still unmistakably a birch trees painting.

Next to the birch trees and Christmas cards there were other interesting subjects:

Like this WIP by Sylvie - can you see what it is?
Koi Carp, in a beautiful blue pond. Will be stunning when the red and orange is in...

After two Birch-tree aquarelles, Anne had some time left (!) and did another study on Strawberry in 'Challiou style'

An interesting landscapy abstract by Judith, no doubt painted in a couple of minutes, with her confident and strong hand, interesting perspective, but now look below - what a portrait! It is so strong in all respects, so full of life and at the same time quiet and so beautiful. We are all a bit in love with this girl. Well done Judith, fabulous !!

Laura's puppies are now finished and even cuter! And then she designed yet another Christmas card, with an adorable Robin, well done with the red breast!

After a long period of entertaining friends and family, having great meals and visiting places, Randi  finally found time to paint again! Luckily, for her and also for us. Here's a first simple yet lovely, playful and original Christmas card!

And just in - Sandra's card design, the cutest yet slightly suspicious looking big breasted robin, with snow and holly - it doesn't get more Christmassy!!